'The Way I See It'

I didn’t know who Pete Souza was until a few months after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States in 2016. It was about then that my wife pointed him out to me on Instagram. His formula was simple: pair a photo of a refined, competent Barack Obama with a caption mocking the latest outrage or ridiculousness from Obama’s successor. Never name the successor, and never spare him from withering criticism either.

Souza was the Chief White House Photographer for all eight of Obama’s years in office. This explained his limitless well of Obama candids - some dazzling with glamor, others human, and still others wrought with emotion. It also explained his notoriety. It didn’t quite explain why Souza decided to start doing what he did, which is where the new documentary The Way I See It comes in.

It is, in many ways, a dramatic expansion of what Souza started doing on Instagram a few years ago, albeit with quite a bit less sarcasm and “shade,” as he would put it. And it is at perhaps its most interesting when it delves in to Souza’s motivations for his late-in-life conversion to social media activism. Souza was also a photographer in the Ronald Reagan White House, and his default position is to shrink in to the wallpaper and capture spectacular, dramatic, and humanizing images of incredibly powerful people.

Trump’s election shook that default position, as it did for many of the rest of us, but of course Souza’s proximity to power for decades makes his shift all the more interesting, as does the modest reasoning behind it. Souza, it seems, is as disturbed by Trump’s lack of humanity and decency, lack of respect for the office, and his fundamental unseriousness as with any specific policy.

In the halcyon days of 2017-18, these concerns might have caused an uproar from the left. Who can forget our national discourse about how much civility a craven liar deserves at a five-star restaurant? Now, on the precipice of an election where one candidate seems only concerned with himself as thousands die per week and another seems profoundly focused on grief and healing, Souza’s perspective takes on extra weight.

Of course, I’d be lying if I claimed that Souza was the real draw for most people. No, the thing that gets you in the door is the chance for a retrospective of the Obama years as told by someone who saw it up close. And that part is pretty damn great as well. Souza had unprecedented access. He seems quite pained (though not surprised) by the fact that Trump does not have someone in a similar role just to document the era for posterity. There are photographers near Trump, but they are used exclusively for canned, stiff photo ops.

Souza’s images are stunning precisely because they are so natural. Just as memorable are his dry, matter-of-fact anecdotes, some of them humorous, others poignant, and still others tragic (grab some extra tissues for the Sandy Hook section). He is an interesting character to be sure, but one of the real treats of The Way I See It is the permission it gives you to look back fondly on the Obamas - if not the Obama years, exactly - without feeling that you are indulging in a straight hagiography or wallowing in self-pity.

The presidency was once, not so long ago, an office with dignity and gravity and decency. It may be so again, either in a week’s time or sometime thereafter. We all have our part to play in restoring it.